IN the joy and excitement of Eid, two stories have emerged this week, which show that for some, the holiday is a time of tragedy or disappointment.
Figures issued by doctors show that in the last four years, 70 children in the Kingdom have suffered eye injuries from fireworks, of whom 20 have lost their sight completely. The majority of these tragedies has taken place during Eid festivities.
The disappointments come from the pedaling of fake perfumes by unscrupulous traders. The annual sales of perfumes in the Saudi Market top SR 4.3 billion, and the Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha breaks are the occasions when fragrance buying peaks.
Now it might seem inappropriate to run together the awful injuries to children’s eyes and the con-tricks perpetrated on shoppers by criminal traders, but in fact, both of these illustrate a fundamental lack of thought by the people involved who become victims.
Some readers may have found astonishing the advice given by a doctor involved in treating kids injured by fireworks. We quoted him on Wednesday as saying that children should wear eye protectors while setting off firecrackers. Well, no actually. Children should not be lighting firecrackers at all. With the exception of sparklers, where, yes doctor, eye protectors are important, no child should be going anywhere near a firework. Nor indeed should shopkeepers be prepared to sell fireworks to children. It is surely common sense that children are kept from the extreme danger of playing around with fire crackers. Being kids, they will underestimate or not appreciate the risks. What starts off as a fun adventure can end up with a fatality.
Therefore, fireworks should be sold to and let off, only by a responsible adult, preferably a parent. And there are even accidents among grown ups, who mishandle these pyrotechnics or are seriously injured by a faulty firework, which detonates prematurely. When all is said and done, the amazing displays that fireworks produce are best appreciated from a safe distance, when they are being let off by specially-trained people, who do this for a living.
Now if it is thoughtlessness that puts our children at risk, it is also thoughtlessness that causes people to be duped by crooked storekeepers into buying phony perfumes. The thought that is lacking is that, if these normally expensive fragrances, are on sale at half their price elsewhere, in reputable stores, surely there is something questionable about them ? Either they are the real deal but have been stolen, or, far more likely, they are out and out fakes. Not only will they not be anything like the scent they are imitating, but they could actually contain dangerous ingredients that will harm a user when applied to the skin.
The low price alone, ought to alert a potential buyer to the high probability that, even though the packaging is an exact imitation of the real thing, an apparently premium perfume is in fact counterfeit.
Now crooks are not stupid. Though there is apparently a ready market for their low-cost fake fragrances, where they think that they can get away with it, they are also charging the normal price for these rip-off scents. In such circumstances, the only way a purchaser can be pretty sure that they are not going to discover later, when the scent bottle is finally opened, that they have in fact paid top dollar for junk, is to shop in reputable outlets. The best retailers have their reputation to protect. They know their supply chains and their wholesalers. If any sort of fake finds its way into their stock and is sold in good faith, they will be eager to replace it, the moment a customer discovers the deception.
You do not have to be an Einstein to see the dangers of letting kids fool about with fireworks or to appreciate the almost near certainty, that if the stunningly low price of a highly desirable perfume looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true. It is in short, a counterfeit.
After a long period of inactivity by many municipalities, the authorities are using legislation to clamp down on suppliers and traders of all sorts of fake goods, from audio-visual and computer programs to scents and auto-parts. However, they have a mountain to climb. The finest way to combat the cheats and thieves, is for the general public to stop buying their phony tat. A new national publicity campaign to expose the fakes and the fakers would surely help drive home the message. And a campaign to get everyone to think about the serious dangers of fireworks, would also be timely.
Editorial: A little more thought needed
